The Seed tag - "Fire and Ice"
Title: Fire and Ice
Author: padawan_aneiki
Rating/Pairing: PG/None
Characters: Lots of John, a little of most everyone else
Summary: After the whole in the wall...
Fire and Ice
“I think...you’re gonna have to come get us,” John choked out. And then he looked down.
The tendril from the hive...thing...had shoved itself directly into his side, and god...it hurt. Surprisingly there was very little blood but as he swayed there on his knees, he realized that Ronon wasn’t there to yank it out. Ronon...oh no... John shakily reached for his radio. “Ronon? Ronon buddy, can you...”
Talking hurt.
John found himself falling and there was nothing really to cushion the blow except more of those...disgusting tentacles. The jarring he took from hitting the floor was enough to take his breath away as fire shot through his stomach, into his back. The pain was making itself known in no uncertain terms and he sucked in shallow breaths. Damn...Keller just got done patching me up...
He realized with a vague sort of detachment that he could feel his heartbeat painfully throbbing away in the pit of his stomach and he shifted his hand toward his abdomen, wrapping his fingers around the disgusting thing lodged inside him and experimentally tugged.
“Aughhh!” he cried out and let go immediately, panting for long moments afterward as molten fire filled his insides. Sweat was prickling up on his face and trickling down his neck and as he laid there panting for breath, the throbbing in the pit of his stomach became a knife, stabbing over and over...
“You...should stay still,” a soft voice said, and John looked over to see Keller staring at him, dazedly, but worriedly.
“Yeah...I...figured...that...out,” he managed between the hard panting breaths. He felt sick; the urge to vomit swept over him and he swallowed weakly. Thump, THUMP, thump, THUMP... His heart pounded in the center of his body, and that was almost tolerable if he breathed carefully. Deeper breaths sent the pain shooting into his back and he decided that was a really bad idea.
“What...what happened?” Keller. Her voice was extremely tired and confused and somewhere in the back of his mind, John knew why that was supposed to be expected.
“You decided...t’...redecorate...the isolation room,” he replied hoarsely. “Something...in ‘Early Wraith.’”
There was no reply, and John tried to lift his head. “Doc?”
Now that he was down, trying to move was not such a good idea either, and he gasped a little as the simple act of picking up his head sent a wave of pain through him. It dawned on him a moment later that the soft thunk registering with his brain was his head connecting with a rare patch of actual floor beneath the sprawl of organic tentacles. His heartbeat thudded heavily in his stomach and his head now; John closed his eyes, concentrating on pulling air into his lungs in a manner that didn’t threaten to break him in two. The thumping rhythm seemed louder and louder in his ears, and he wondered vaguely how his heart had gotten loud enough to hear.
Gradually it dawned on him what he was hearing, and he blinked his eyes open. Disconnected from their organizational source, some of the organic tendrils were flailing in what could only be described as death throes and they pounded the floor around him, the walls, the ceiling above him.
Sudden, sheer agony spread through John’s entire abdomen as the tentacle impaling him jerked and pulled, and then twisted inside him. White-hot pain stole his breath away, and he choked, coughed and fought to inhale. The thing writhed in his abdomen and he could’ve sworn it was cutting him apart. John writhed on the floor, desperate to escape the knife sawing into his stomach.
A sharper pain stabbed deep inside him and abruptly the thumping, jerking, twisting motion all around him stopped. The tentacle that had driven into him quivered once more, and he suddenly found his voice, crying out roughly, breathlessly as it too stopped moving. He didn’t know how long he lay there, panting weakly and staring up at a ceiling abruptly bare as many of the dying ‘arms’ had fallen from it.
“Colonel Sheppard?” a voice sounded in his ear, a familiar annoying tone. Woolsey. John struggled to lift his hand to his earpiece. It seemed to take forever but finally he activated his com.
“H...here,” he choked out roughly.
“The team has to cut its way through to you; the organic material has blocked much of their approach. They’re coming as quickly as they can.”
“Oh...ohkay...” John agreed dazedly. The excruciating pain was slowly dying back down to the thudding, throbbing heartbeat that filled his stomach and spread to his back when he tried to take a full breath.
“Colonel, lad, are ye with us?” Carson’s brogue broke in on the little conversation and John realized suddenly he was being addressed.
“R’non...” John slurred; they had to help the big guy. Thump...thump...thump. He swallowed and breathed. God, it hurts to breathe. “Gotta...get...R’non.”
“We’re almost to him now, Sir,” Someone else’s voice was in his ear next and John unconsciously nodded. Dizziness washed over him in a nauseating rush, and he closed his eyes. In that instant, he was aware that the floor was cold, and that he was very, very tired. Something tickled the back of his mind...internal bleeding.
“Y’know...this real’ sucks...” he slurred wearily to no one in particular. “Sh...I’m shish...kabob...twice ‘n a month.” No one answered, and he was too tired and it hurt too much to move to bother with activating his earpiece.
John drifted, then, aware of little aside from the heavy, painful throbbing in his stomach, and an oddly fluttery feeling in his chest, almost like a counterpoint. Vague nausea and dizziness continued to join in; the waves of uncomfortable sensation just what was needed to complete the experience.
“Sheppard! Sheppard, come in!” Breathing hurt, igniting a fire that spread through his gut. Hazel eyes drifted open lazily and a faint frown graced John’s features as he tried to remember why each inhalation invited such sharp stomach pains. “John!” The shout in his ear made him suck in a startled breath which in turn hurt so badly it wrenched a groan from his throat. He lay very still several moments, willing the harsh ache to ease enough to allow for movement.
His arm felt heavy and uncoordinated as he lifted a hand and fumbled with his earpiece. “’M here...don’ shout, Ro’ney,” he responded after what felt like a lot of effort. John swallowed, a wistful longing for a little water drifting through his mind. It dawned on him as he lay there that he must have zoned out on the scientist and that was why McKay was all irritated. Licking dry lips, he worked to reactivate the radio. “Ro’ney?”
“Not shouting,” McKay replied; all irritation and worry wrapped up in two words. “You weren’t responding...we were a little worried. We’re almost to you. You okay?” There was barely a pause before the scientist pressed, “Sheppard? You okay?”
“’M good,” John mumbled and he shivered. Consciousness sharpened with the pain it produced, and he sucked in an agonized breath.
“No, no you’re not good, I can hear it in your voice,” Rodney was saying. “Keep talking to me, all right? Just...just talk to me. We’ll get you two out of there. How’s Jennifer?” John moaned; his stomach was full with hot, burning, twisting pain awakened by the shivering. Yet, now that he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop and the trembling was an exercise in agony; there was no strength to even lift his head to look for the doctor. “John?” Rodney, his voice incredibly worried.
“Jus’...a stomach...ache,” he whispered and he wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince, Rodney or himself. THUMP...thumpTHUMP...thumpTHUMP...thumpTHUMP-THUMP...thump,thump,thump. The thudding ache pummeled his stomach faster, and harder, now but without the familiar, steady rhythm. A sick dizziness swept over him and John swallowed weakly. He was so tired. Heavy eyelids blinked drowsily as he heard a series of hard bangs but even the sounds of rescue couldn’t keep him awake any longer and he let himself slide into the waiting dark.
++++++
“Oh, come on, can’t you hurry up?” Rodney exclaimed as the marines worked to free the isolation room door from the pile of tentacles and ‘trunk’ material that was now massed in front of the doorway. They’d been able to cut their way through most of the hallway and Rodney had to admit that he was impressed with that; the colonel’s mission to deliver the cure to Jennifer had been successful and it seemed as though it resulted in near total-lifelessness in the rest of the...nascent Hive, for lack of a better term.
Still, dead-or near-dead-bodies always seem heavier than their living counterparts, and so it had taken them the better part of a half hour to hack, burn or otherwise force their way into the area housing the isolation room. Duplicating Sheppard’s little kamikaze run was out of the question.
“They’re goin’ as fast as they possibly can, Rodney,” Carson chided lightly as took this pause as an opportunity to make Ronon-who’d regained consciousness and insisted on coming along-sit down and rest. While the Satedan didn’t seem to be having difficulty getting air, a bruised larynx and esophagus were causing his breathing to be a trifle noisy, punctuated with the occasional coughing fit. Ronon glared a little, but didn’t argue when Carson placed a portable oxygen tank in his lap and made him hold the mask over his nose and mouth. “Just ta be on the safe side, lad,” he encouraged.
“I know, Doc,” Ronon pulled the mask away long enough to croak out, then breathed from it again when Carson glared back.
“Sheppard?” Rodney tried once again, and the physicist’s face was a mask of anxiety. “Sheppard, do you read me? Doctor Keller...Jennifer?”
“We’ll be in there in a minute, Doctor McKay,” one of the marines said politely even as he was laying out a bit of C4 to blow the door-and whatever remained of the tentacles-into oblivion. “You might wanna stand back a bit, though.”
“What about Sheppard and Keller?” McKay yelped, glancing wildly from door to Marine and back again. “We don’t know how far away from the door they are, or what’s going on in there...For all we know, before they all...did their little dance of death, those things might’ve attacked them both.”
“All the more reason to get in there as quick as we can, Doc,” the Marine sergeant answered simply as he stuck the needed wires into the plastic explosive. “And this is just enough of a charge to blast a hole in the doors, really. So long as they’re a few feet back, we’re good and Keller’s in the center of the room, right?”
“Assumin’ she’s still bein’ held down by the shell that’s formed around her, aye,” Carson responded. “I dunna think she could break through that on her own, without some type o’ help.”
“Okay, then...” the sergeant pulled out a controller.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa...no, no, no...What, you’re just gonna take the chance that your CO is just far enough away from the door before you blow it up?” Rodney sputtered.
“He’s right, M’kay...” Ronon managed to say, his voice very, very hoarse. “Pow’r still...down.”
“What did I tell ye about talkin’, now, lad?” Carson interjected sharply, one hand on the bigger man’s shoulder. “Ye have ta rest those vocal chords awhile, now. No more talkin’, I mean it.”
“’Kay,” Ronon agreed with a smirk and a loose shrug of broad shoulders. His throat was badly bruised where the tendril had wrapped tightly around his windpipe, and there were accompanying bruises on his forearms. There’d been no time for a full examination as yet, but Carson had no doubt that beneath the former Runner’s trousers, there were bruises on his legs as well.
Carson looked up briefly and swallowed as a small pain flowered inside, and he hunched over a little, reaching up to wipe the back of his hand across his forehead, which had begun to bead with a fine perspiration.
“Carson?” Rodney was quick to catch the little hitch and he pushed his way past Marines to the Scot’s side. On one level, it was still a little freaky to think about the man before him as being a clone, a copy of the original and yet...on another level it was not hard at all to accept him as Carson Beckett, his friend. “You don’t look so good, my friend,” he murmured anxiously. “Are you...are you in pain?”
“I’m a’right,” Carson waved him off with a little wave. “Just a wee twinge...when we get back ta the Infirmary, I’ll be due for my next injection.”
“Maybe...maybe you two should start back now,” Rodney’s hand fluttered as he gestured to Ronon and then back down the hallway. “We can take care of...”
“I’m no’ goin’ anywhere,” Carson insisted, carefully straightening and relaxing when he found the motion didn’t produce any further discomfort. “I’ve got a pair o’ patients in there who need ma help,” he asserted. “We dunna know how badly hurt they are, an’ I’m no’ goin’ ta leave ‘em when it may well be life an’ death.”
“What about your life and death?” Rodney exclaimed, his voice ratcheting up just a notch or two. “I’ve already gone through that once, and believe me that was more than enough.”
“Fire in the hole!” the Marine sergeant...Caforio? Catalano? ...something Italian anyway, announced and Rodney jerked his head up sharply.
“Wait just a...” he started to exclaim, when the sergeant pressed the button on the remote detonator.
Rodney wasn’t sure for a moment which was worse; the feeling of dread that they might’ve just blown up Sheppard, or the nauseating lurch in the pit of his stomach from the splatter-splat of exploded organic...material landing on the floor and walls. He grimaced as he fought his stomach for the rights to breakfast.
“C’mon, Rodney,” Carson cajoled; the physician was already moving. “I’m goin’ ta need some help.”
“Oh, I am so going to make you pay for this,” McKay moaned a little as he picked his way through pieces of what looked like so much charred entrails. Only to stop dead in his tracks as he entered what was left of the isolation room. “You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered, wide-eyed as he took in the giant hole in the wall courtesy the John Sheppard Demolition Derby. “Oh, no...”
Maybe ten feet away, crumpled awkwardly in a pile of the snake-like tendrils, was Sheppard.
He looked dead.
Rodney pushed past the Marine sergeant and forgot about his P-90. He was on his knees beside the lieutenant colonel, fingers fumbling for a pulse at the pilot’s neck while Carson quickly checked Jennifer and directed the Marines and a pair of trauma medics to begin cutting her out of the shell that encased her.
“Carson!” he called out even as the Scot was hurrying over.
“Rodney?”
“He’s alive,” Rodney confirmed as Carson knelt down at the colonel’s other side. “But his pulse is really, really fast and weak.” He gulped a little as he glanced at the tentacle embedded in John’s midsection. “Of course, penetrating abdominal trauma will do that to a person,” he added nervously.
“Aye, that it will,” Carson said as he took his turn at taking John’s pulse, although unlike Rodney he was counting as the other two trauma team members joined them. “Pulse one-twenty an’ thready, respiration slow an’ shallow,” he informed the trauma medics. “Trace, get ‘im started on ten litres O2 an’ get an IV started, ringers. Anya, love, get me a pressure...let’s see what we’re up against.” As an oxygen mask was slipped over John’s nose and mouth, and the trauma nurse proceeded to take his blood pressure, Carson assessed his patient’s injured abdomen.
“Pressure’s eighty over sixty,” Anya reported tersely.
“Aye, his belly is in a bad way...distended an’ rigid,” Carson confirmed. “We’re lookin’ at some serious internal damage an’ bleedin’...we need ta get him inta surgery.” He reached up and activated his radio. “Beckett ta Infirmary. Claire, I need the primary operatin’ theatre prepped, an’ get Doctor Singh. Tell him I want him scrubbed an’ ready ta go the minute we arrive; we’re dealin’ with an acute abdomen an’ I want plenty o’ Colonel Sheppard’s type on hand.”
“Carson...” McKay murmured and when Beckett looked back down he was more than surprised to see glassy hazel eyes blinking back up at him.
“Colonel, lad, are ye with us?” he asked gently and John blinked at him again. “John, can ye hear me?”
“C’son...” John slurred and Carson smiled reassuringly at him.
“Aye, lad, ‘tis me,” he confirmed.
“Jen’fer...?” John tried to lift his head and instantly dropped back down with a deep, agonized groan. Carson’s hands shifted to the colonel’s shoulders to keep him from moving further.
“She’s bein’ looked after,” the Scot promised, wincing sympathetically as John sucked in a shallow breath. “Easy, now, Colonel; I need ye ta be still an’ no’ tryin’ ta move around. I know ye’r belly’s hurtin’; ye been a bit skewered, an’ ye’r bleedin’ inta ye stomach.” John stilled beneath his hand, and Carson nodded approvingly. “That’s good, lad; try ta relax as much as ye can, I know it’s hard with that pain, but we’re goin’ ta get ye down ta the Infirmary an’ take care o’ ye.”
“R’non?” John wanted to know next, and this time it was Rodney who answered, his voice practically humming with anxiety.
“Conan pretty much got the crap choked out of him, and he’s gotta keep quiet for a few days but he’s fine aside from a lot of bruises. You’re the one the thing decided to stab in the guts.” Rodney awkwardly reached down and patted John’s upper arm. “Just...quit squirming and let Beckett do his voodoo. It’s okay, it worked...the City’s good. They just cracked Keller out of her...well; I wouldn’t call it an oyster. But they broke her out, and...Hey, hey, stay with us, okay?” He patted John’s arm again, careful not to jar anything. Eyelids that had dropped nearly closed now fluttered drowsily. “Don’t...don’t go anywhere on us, Sheppard.”
“He’s lost a lot o’ blood, Rodney,” Carson whispered softly, before squeezing John’s other shoulder. “Lad, we’re goin’ ta cut ye free o’ this thing; we’ll be as careful no’ ta hurt ye as we can.” Carson nodded to Trace, who was prepared to sever the tendril from the main trunk of organic material so the colonel could be moved without pulling out the portion impaling his abdomen. The doctor shifted to brace one hand on either side of the area to be cut in an attempt to minimize movement, but even so, it was almost impossible to avoid the sharp tug that came partway through the cutting of the thick, viscous appendage.
The sound that emerged from John’s throat was weak and breathless, but so pained that Carson had no doubt if the colonel had the strength it would’ve been a full-throated scream. “What, are you trying to kill him?” Rodney yelped, and Trace hesitated, caught between the task at hand, the scientist’s ire, and the lieutenant colonel’s obvious pain.
“Hold him!” Carson called out. When John continued to writhe weakly, the Scot speared Rodney with a sharp look. “Rodney, I need ye ta keep him still, before he’s injured worse.”
Blue eyes looked up, startled and McKay swallowed hard before placing his hands on his friend’s shoulders, pressing Sheppard to the floor. He wasn’t sure what scared him more, that he was pinning the colonel there despite Sheppard’s weak resistance, or the dark wet stain spreading on the black teeshirt courtesy of several moments of the painful spasms.
“Don’t fight,” Rodney pleaded now, eyes wide and frantic. “It’s okay...it’s going to be okay, but you’ve gotta stop fighting.” No one was more grateful than Rodney when the fight went out of the colonel as the pain died down, but beneath his hands he could feel John’s shoulders trembling. “Good, that...that’s good, just hang on,” Rodney encouraged and turned his wide-eyed stare on Carson. “Can we wrap this up sometime in the near future? The man’s bleeding to death!” he hissed, although Rodney’s idea of “sotto voce” was somewhat more than a stage-whisper.
“Aye,” Carson agreed, one hand letting go of the tentacle long enough to tap John’s cheek and gain the colonel’s waning attention. “Lad, ye need ta hold still a moment longer so we can cut ye loose; just try ta take some deep, easy breaths for me.” He gripped the thick Wraith tendril once again. “All right, Trace, ye need ta make quicker work o’ this.”
Carson steadied the piece of hive as the trauma technician resumed his attack on it. In the end, “quicker” might not have described the process, and there were a few more terribly painful moments for John throughout, but at last the appendage was severed and the colonel was freed from the main mass of the encroaching Hive material.
“Oh...guh...” John grunted, and coughed a little, which brought on a weak moan.
“Easy Colonel,” Carson soothed as he worked to carefully bandage the part of the tendril that was still embedded in John’s stomach to prevent further motion or injury during transport. “We’ll have ye out o’ here shortly.”
“You...you did good, John,” Rodney piped up softly. “You did good. We’re gonna take care of you, okay?”
“Let’s get him on a stretcher,” Carson ordered when the wound was as stabilized for the trip as he could make it. The hive-ship material’s growth had made it impossible to bring regular gurneys with them; those were waiting on the level above the wrecked isolation room, ready for their next patients to be deposited in them. “Rodney, ye can let go o’ the lad now,” he said, and belatedly, with a startled little noise, the scientist released the pilot’s shoulders.
“’Kay, Rodney,” John murmured, finally answering the scientist’s encouragement as the stretcher was set up and settled beside the lieutenant colonel.
“On three,” Beckett pronounced. “One...two...three!” Together he and Trace lifted the wounded Sheppard and as carefully as they could, placed him on the litter. Despite their gentleness, the motion still jarred John enough to wrench a pained, choked cry from him before the hazel eyes rolled back and drifted closed.
“Carson!” Rodney fairly yelped, and the physician shifted over to press bloodied fingers to John’s neck. The rapid pulse continued to hammer beneath his fingertips, however it was growing erratic.
“He’s just unconscious, Rodney, but we’ll no’ keep him with us much longer if we dunna get him ta the Infirmary right now,,” Carson declared as he positioned himself to pick up the litter at John’s feet. “Trace, if ye please...?” There was no hesitation; the trauma medic reached for the stretcher handles at John’s head and wrapped his hands around them.
Rodney glanced over at the bed and the remains of the hard shell that had been cut away from Jennifer and he felt his stomach lurch to see her lying on her litter just as limply as Sheppard. Her face and hands were still a patchwork of tiny tendrils. However, despite the matching oxygen masks and IV’s, she didn’t appear to be in the same type of distress as Sheppard, and that at least was a relief. Ronon caught his gaze as the former Runner shrugged aside the nurse trying to attend to him and the pair of team-mates shared a tense, worried moment.
Their patients secured, the medical teams began to quickly pick their way out of the isolation room, Carson giving orders all the way, but the commands were rapidly drowned out of Rodney’s attention by the anxiety clenching his stomach and the rush to keep up with Carson’s people, especially after the unconscious duo had been transferred to the waiting gurneys. One order, however pierced the worried fog, and that was Carson commanding whoever was waiting for them in the operating arena to be ready to start John on a unit of blood the instant they hit the Infirmary.
Rodney found his knees a little shaky after that and his pace dropped off considerably as he watched the gurney bearing the dark-haired colonel disappear into the nearest transporter. It wasn’t until he felt a hand land heavily on his shoulder that he snapped out of the stunned stare to find he was practically alone with Conan and the nurse he’d brushed off earlier, Keller having been taken up in the transporter after Sheppard.
“C’mon, ‘Kay,” Ronon croaked out despite Carson’s orders, and he nodded stiffly in the direction of the transporter. “Got’ be there...when th’ wake up.”
“He’ll be waiting for you to wake up if you don’t stop talking,” the nurse interjected, perhaps a little sharply, but when Ronon glared at her, she merely put her hands on her hips. “Don’t think I won’t sedate you, Ronon Dex,” she answered back. “You’re not supposed to be talking; your vocal chords have been damaged. If you want to have the ability to talk to the colonel during his recovery, you’d better behave yourself.”
Rodney could only gape at the seemingly fearless nurse as she stood her ground, and his expression grew even more stunned when the Satedan’s expression morphed into an amused grin. He was already moving again, however, heading for the now-empty transporter. “Come on already,” he snapped. “We might as well hurry up and wait...his surgery’s probably gonna take awhile this time, too.”
Without another word, Ronon simply stepped into the transporter after Rodney and they headed to the Infirmary to await word on the good doctor Keller and their seemingly impalement-prone team leader.
++++++
Beep...beep...beep...beep...
The oddly muted sound penetrated the comfortable haze he was wrapped in, like a blanket, and John sluggishly willed it to shut up so he could go back to sleep. Beep...beep...beep...beep... It dawned on him a moment later, somewhat vaguely, that the annoying tone was keeping time along with the thump-thump feeling deep inside his stomach, and he wondered why his stomach would be making weird noises.
“Carson?” a voice buzzed nearby and John tried to ignore it; he was too tired and the thump-thump was beginning to hurt. “I think he’s coming to,” the voice spoke again.
“Colonel, lad?” Another familiar voice spoke nearby and John wished they’d all go away and let him sleep. “Colonel, ye need ta open those eyes for me.”
“Ifnmeanlemmesleep...” he mumbled, slurred really, and a vague frown popped up on pale features.
“John, ye need ta look at me, an’ let me look at ye, an’ then ye can go back ta sleep,” the familiar, accented voice said. “C’mon now, open up an’ let us see ye in there.” His eyelids felt unnaturally heavy and sleep-sodden, but John managed to drag them open to a blurry face and he blinked, trying to correct it before it churned up the nausea that seemed to lurk beneath the surface. “Easy now,” Carson Beckett was saying as his face finally came into focus.
“C’son?” John tried to make his voice work; it sounded weak and his throat hurt. But there was no mistaking the surprise in his tone for anything else.
“Aye, Colonel,” Carson reassured, already moving to pick up a small styrofoam cup that contained a few ice chips. He spooned a pair of the chips into his patient’s mouth, and John closed his eyes as wet bliss melted on his tongue and trickled back to his sore, dry throat. “How are ye feelin’, lad? Any nausea?”
“Li’l bit,” John mumbled groggily and he forced his eyes open again. He carefully turned his head to the right a little, and found the earlier speaker sitting there...Rodney, with the requisite datapad in his hands, blue eyes watching him anxiously. “Wha’appened?”
“You were stabbed by one of the developing Hive’s...tentacle-things,” Rodney wrinkled his nose a little as he mentioned it. “Poked you like a pincushion, really.”
“Rodney,” Carson chided.
“R’non ‘n Kell’r?” John tried to sound demanding but there just wasn’t enough strength behind his voice to pull it off. It was the worried look in the hazel eyes that prompted Carson to answer.
“They’re doin’ well enough,” he soothed, knowing that more than likely he’d have to answer this question again when John was more in control of his faculties. “Ronon’ is restin’ an’ gettin’ a wee bit o’ oxygen just as a precaution; his throat’s been badly bruised. Jennifer is currently in isolation, but she’s regained consciousness an’ she said ta thank ye when ye came up outta sedation.”
Carson chuckled slightly then, and John frowned vaguely in confusion. “Wha’s funny?”
“She said ta tell ye ta behave,” Carson supplied and he cocked his head a little. “Seems ye been breakin’ her in ta the business lately.” His expression softened into one of concern. “Ye just rest now, lad. I’ll get somethin’ ta fix that nausea.”
John blinked blearily, watching the physician go and then turned his drugged gaze to Rodney once more.
“How...how bad?” he wanted to know, and he frowned vaguely when McKay shifted awkwardly and swallowed hard. “M’Kay?”
“You were in surgery almost five hours,” Rodney answered quietly. “Carson said the damn thing punched a hole in your stomach and lacerated some of the lining when it...moved around. You were lucky it didn’t come out the other side and puncture anything else.” Rodney swallowed again, glancing away as he continued, “There was a lot of tissue damage but Carson said he was able to repair most of it; a couple places will heal on their own. You’re gonna be okay, and everything but it’s gonna take some time and a lot of rest.” The scientist looked back up and motioned above John’s head toward one of the bags hanging on the IV stand. “You uh, lost a lot of blood.”
John followed Rodney’s motion with a slight turn of his head and took in the blurry sight of the pint of blood that was making its way into his arm. The few minutes’ worth of conversation was costing him in terms of strength; he was more than ready to slide back to sleep and stay there for at least a week. There was one thing more he had to know, however and he forced his attention back onto the physicist sitting beside him.
“Th’ city?” he croaked out, and looked at Rodney as intently as he possibly good while still influenced by Carson’s ‘good stuff.’ “’Lantis...ok?”
“As okay as she can be considering there’s a jumper-sized hole in the isolation room,” Rodney huffed, and the normal-ness of his response was enough to tell John that everything else was under control, and he exhaled in relief. “The...baby Hive ship is being scraped off the walls and floors even as we speak, and Keller’s Ninja Turtle shell has been taken in pieces for analysis. It’s entirely possible that every Wraith Hive has a...controller like that embedded somewhere in the ship itself, but I’m just as happy not poking around inside one to find out.”
Rodney was still talking about the recovery efforts when Carson returned with a syringe of medication that he introduced into John’s IV in a practiced motion. “There ye go, lad. That’ll settle ye’r stomach directly an’ ye can get some sleep.” The last was said with a stern look at Rodney.
“Hey, he asked me a question; I was just answering him,” McKay said innocently, and he bent his head back to his datapad, fingers dancing silently over the touchscreen. He glanced up a moment later and gave John a half-smile. “Go to sleep, already,” he encouraged and waited until John drowsily nodded and closed his eyes before going back to work.
++++++
The next few days passed in a fuzzy blur of waking and sleeping, pain medication and close monitoring courtesy of Beckett and several nurses. It was all punctuated by occasional visits from his team; he woke up with McKay sitting beside him the most often.
The way to get Ronon to talk, apparently, was to forbid him to do so; each time John awakened to find the Satedan in the chair beside him, Ronon pushed the limits of Carson’s patience by trying to hold a conversation. Fortunately for both their sakes, John was still too early in his recovery to stay awake for very long, cutting their “talks” short when he dozed off.
Slightly fewer between, but no less appreciated, were visits from Teyla. New motherhood was telling on her; she was nearly as tired as John, but for a far different reason. Somehow, despite the pain and the prospect of a long recovery, John thought he had the better end of things, until he realized the nurses woke him up in the pre-dawn hours checking vitals and changing IV’s. Maybe a crying baby wasn’t that bad a deal, just a lot louder.
The second time she visited, her son was in her arms, making soft little noises that had nothing to do with crying, and tiny little fists flying in spastic motion. Seeing John was awake, Teyla had come closer with little Torren, and the spectacularly tiny fingers had wrapped themselves around John’s forefinger, and John smiled, stroking the petal-soft cheek, and drowsily observed the child had Teyla’s eyes before slipping back into the waiting dark.
After those first few days, John began to gain some ground, and Woolsey had come to see him. Carson and Jennifer too, and it had been a relief to see Keller released from isolation and looking much more like herself. It was then that he learned he was being turned over to Keller’s jurisdiction as Carson was returning to Earth within the hour. It had been delayed long enough, and yet...John was reluctant to part with the Scot yet again. The two doctors wandered away, then leaving John alone with the new commander of the Atlantis expedition.
He decided the IOA bureaucrat had just received his baptism of fire-in other words, just another day in the Pegasus Galaxy-and he’d graciously shaken the man’s hand and welcomed him to it. Pegasus, he had the feeling, had a few more lessons up its sleeve. Woolsey’d figure it out sooner or later.
He hoped.
John watched Woolsey make his exit, and decided that just as long as it didn’t take becoming another shish-kabob to make it happen, he was okay with that. Settling back against the pillows, he closed his eyes and let sleep come again.
Author: padawan_aneiki
Rating/Pairing: PG/None
Characters: Lots of John, a little of most everyone else
Summary: After the whole in the wall...
Fire and Ice
“I think...you’re gonna have to come get us,” John choked out. And then he looked down.
The tendril from the hive...thing...had shoved itself directly into his side, and god...it hurt. Surprisingly there was very little blood but as he swayed there on his knees, he realized that Ronon wasn’t there to yank it out. Ronon...oh no... John shakily reached for his radio. “Ronon? Ronon buddy, can you...”
Talking hurt.
John found himself falling and there was nothing really to cushion the blow except more of those...disgusting tentacles. The jarring he took from hitting the floor was enough to take his breath away as fire shot through his stomach, into his back. The pain was making itself known in no uncertain terms and he sucked in shallow breaths. Damn...Keller just got done patching me up...
He realized with a vague sort of detachment that he could feel his heartbeat painfully throbbing away in the pit of his stomach and he shifted his hand toward his abdomen, wrapping his fingers around the disgusting thing lodged inside him and experimentally tugged.
“Aughhh!” he cried out and let go immediately, panting for long moments afterward as molten fire filled his insides. Sweat was prickling up on his face and trickling down his neck and as he laid there panting for breath, the throbbing in the pit of his stomach became a knife, stabbing over and over...
“You...should stay still,” a soft voice said, and John looked over to see Keller staring at him, dazedly, but worriedly.
“Yeah...I...figured...that...out,” he managed between the hard panting breaths. He felt sick; the urge to vomit swept over him and he swallowed weakly. Thump, THUMP, thump, THUMP... His heart pounded in the center of his body, and that was almost tolerable if he breathed carefully. Deeper breaths sent the pain shooting into his back and he decided that was a really bad idea.
“What...what happened?” Keller. Her voice was extremely tired and confused and somewhere in the back of his mind, John knew why that was supposed to be expected.
“You decided...t’...redecorate...the isolation room,” he replied hoarsely. “Something...in ‘Early Wraith.’”
There was no reply, and John tried to lift his head. “Doc?”
Now that he was down, trying to move was not such a good idea either, and he gasped a little as the simple act of picking up his head sent a wave of pain through him. It dawned on him a moment later that the soft thunk registering with his brain was his head connecting with a rare patch of actual floor beneath the sprawl of organic tentacles. His heartbeat thudded heavily in his stomach and his head now; John closed his eyes, concentrating on pulling air into his lungs in a manner that didn’t threaten to break him in two. The thumping rhythm seemed louder and louder in his ears, and he wondered vaguely how his heart had gotten loud enough to hear.
Gradually it dawned on him what he was hearing, and he blinked his eyes open. Disconnected from their organizational source, some of the organic tendrils were flailing in what could only be described as death throes and they pounded the floor around him, the walls, the ceiling above him.
Sudden, sheer agony spread through John’s entire abdomen as the tentacle impaling him jerked and pulled, and then twisted inside him. White-hot pain stole his breath away, and he choked, coughed and fought to inhale. The thing writhed in his abdomen and he could’ve sworn it was cutting him apart. John writhed on the floor, desperate to escape the knife sawing into his stomach.
A sharper pain stabbed deep inside him and abruptly the thumping, jerking, twisting motion all around him stopped. The tentacle that had driven into him quivered once more, and he suddenly found his voice, crying out roughly, breathlessly as it too stopped moving. He didn’t know how long he lay there, panting weakly and staring up at a ceiling abruptly bare as many of the dying ‘arms’ had fallen from it.
“Colonel Sheppard?” a voice sounded in his ear, a familiar annoying tone. Woolsey. John struggled to lift his hand to his earpiece. It seemed to take forever but finally he activated his com.
“H...here,” he choked out roughly.
“The team has to cut its way through to you; the organic material has blocked much of their approach. They’re coming as quickly as they can.”
“Oh...ohkay...” John agreed dazedly. The excruciating pain was slowly dying back down to the thudding, throbbing heartbeat that filled his stomach and spread to his back when he tried to take a full breath.
“Colonel, lad, are ye with us?” Carson’s brogue broke in on the little conversation and John realized suddenly he was being addressed.
“R’non...” John slurred; they had to help the big guy. Thump...thump...thump. He swallowed and breathed. God, it hurts to breathe. “Gotta...get...R’non.”
“We’re almost to him now, Sir,” Someone else’s voice was in his ear next and John unconsciously nodded. Dizziness washed over him in a nauseating rush, and he closed his eyes. In that instant, he was aware that the floor was cold, and that he was very, very tired. Something tickled the back of his mind...internal bleeding.
“Y’know...this real’ sucks...” he slurred wearily to no one in particular. “Sh...I’m shish...kabob...twice ‘n a month.” No one answered, and he was too tired and it hurt too much to move to bother with activating his earpiece.
John drifted, then, aware of little aside from the heavy, painful throbbing in his stomach, and an oddly fluttery feeling in his chest, almost like a counterpoint. Vague nausea and dizziness continued to join in; the waves of uncomfortable sensation just what was needed to complete the experience.
“Sheppard! Sheppard, come in!” Breathing hurt, igniting a fire that spread through his gut. Hazel eyes drifted open lazily and a faint frown graced John’s features as he tried to remember why each inhalation invited such sharp stomach pains. “John!” The shout in his ear made him suck in a startled breath which in turn hurt so badly it wrenched a groan from his throat. He lay very still several moments, willing the harsh ache to ease enough to allow for movement.
His arm felt heavy and uncoordinated as he lifted a hand and fumbled with his earpiece. “’M here...don’ shout, Ro’ney,” he responded after what felt like a lot of effort. John swallowed, a wistful longing for a little water drifting through his mind. It dawned on him as he lay there that he must have zoned out on the scientist and that was why McKay was all irritated. Licking dry lips, he worked to reactivate the radio. “Ro’ney?”
“Not shouting,” McKay replied; all irritation and worry wrapped up in two words. “You weren’t responding...we were a little worried. We’re almost to you. You okay?” There was barely a pause before the scientist pressed, “Sheppard? You okay?”
“’M good,” John mumbled and he shivered. Consciousness sharpened with the pain it produced, and he sucked in an agonized breath.
“No, no you’re not good, I can hear it in your voice,” Rodney was saying. “Keep talking to me, all right? Just...just talk to me. We’ll get you two out of there. How’s Jennifer?” John moaned; his stomach was full with hot, burning, twisting pain awakened by the shivering. Yet, now that he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop and the trembling was an exercise in agony; there was no strength to even lift his head to look for the doctor. “John?” Rodney, his voice incredibly worried.
“Jus’...a stomach...ache,” he whispered and he wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince, Rodney or himself. THUMP...thumpTHUMP...thumpTHUMP...thumpTHUMP-THUMP...thump,thump,thump. The thudding ache pummeled his stomach faster, and harder, now but without the familiar, steady rhythm. A sick dizziness swept over him and John swallowed weakly. He was so tired. Heavy eyelids blinked drowsily as he heard a series of hard bangs but even the sounds of rescue couldn’t keep him awake any longer and he let himself slide into the waiting dark.
++++++
“Oh, come on, can’t you hurry up?” Rodney exclaimed as the marines worked to free the isolation room door from the pile of tentacles and ‘trunk’ material that was now massed in front of the doorway. They’d been able to cut their way through most of the hallway and Rodney had to admit that he was impressed with that; the colonel’s mission to deliver the cure to Jennifer had been successful and it seemed as though it resulted in near total-lifelessness in the rest of the...nascent Hive, for lack of a better term.
Still, dead-or near-dead-bodies always seem heavier than their living counterparts, and so it had taken them the better part of a half hour to hack, burn or otherwise force their way into the area housing the isolation room. Duplicating Sheppard’s little kamikaze run was out of the question.
“They’re goin’ as fast as they possibly can, Rodney,” Carson chided lightly as took this pause as an opportunity to make Ronon-who’d regained consciousness and insisted on coming along-sit down and rest. While the Satedan didn’t seem to be having difficulty getting air, a bruised larynx and esophagus were causing his breathing to be a trifle noisy, punctuated with the occasional coughing fit. Ronon glared a little, but didn’t argue when Carson placed a portable oxygen tank in his lap and made him hold the mask over his nose and mouth. “Just ta be on the safe side, lad,” he encouraged.
“I know, Doc,” Ronon pulled the mask away long enough to croak out, then breathed from it again when Carson glared back.
“Sheppard?” Rodney tried once again, and the physicist’s face was a mask of anxiety. “Sheppard, do you read me? Doctor Keller...Jennifer?”
“We’ll be in there in a minute, Doctor McKay,” one of the marines said politely even as he was laying out a bit of C4 to blow the door-and whatever remained of the tentacles-into oblivion. “You might wanna stand back a bit, though.”
“What about Sheppard and Keller?” McKay yelped, glancing wildly from door to Marine and back again. “We don’t know how far away from the door they are, or what’s going on in there...For all we know, before they all...did their little dance of death, those things might’ve attacked them both.”
“All the more reason to get in there as quick as we can, Doc,” the Marine sergeant answered simply as he stuck the needed wires into the plastic explosive. “And this is just enough of a charge to blast a hole in the doors, really. So long as they’re a few feet back, we’re good and Keller’s in the center of the room, right?”
“Assumin’ she’s still bein’ held down by the shell that’s formed around her, aye,” Carson responded. “I dunna think she could break through that on her own, without some type o’ help.”
“Okay, then...” the sergeant pulled out a controller.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa...no, no, no...What, you’re just gonna take the chance that your CO is just far enough away from the door before you blow it up?” Rodney sputtered.
“He’s right, M’kay...” Ronon managed to say, his voice very, very hoarse. “Pow’r still...down.”
“What did I tell ye about talkin’, now, lad?” Carson interjected sharply, one hand on the bigger man’s shoulder. “Ye have ta rest those vocal chords awhile, now. No more talkin’, I mean it.”
“’Kay,” Ronon agreed with a smirk and a loose shrug of broad shoulders. His throat was badly bruised where the tendril had wrapped tightly around his windpipe, and there were accompanying bruises on his forearms. There’d been no time for a full examination as yet, but Carson had no doubt that beneath the former Runner’s trousers, there were bruises on his legs as well.
Carson looked up briefly and swallowed as a small pain flowered inside, and he hunched over a little, reaching up to wipe the back of his hand across his forehead, which had begun to bead with a fine perspiration.
“Carson?” Rodney was quick to catch the little hitch and he pushed his way past Marines to the Scot’s side. On one level, it was still a little freaky to think about the man before him as being a clone, a copy of the original and yet...on another level it was not hard at all to accept him as Carson Beckett, his friend. “You don’t look so good, my friend,” he murmured anxiously. “Are you...are you in pain?”
“I’m a’right,” Carson waved him off with a little wave. “Just a wee twinge...when we get back ta the Infirmary, I’ll be due for my next injection.”
“Maybe...maybe you two should start back now,” Rodney’s hand fluttered as he gestured to Ronon and then back down the hallway. “We can take care of...”
“I’m no’ goin’ anywhere,” Carson insisted, carefully straightening and relaxing when he found the motion didn’t produce any further discomfort. “I’ve got a pair o’ patients in there who need ma help,” he asserted. “We dunna know how badly hurt they are, an’ I’m no’ goin’ ta leave ‘em when it may well be life an’ death.”
“What about your life and death?” Rodney exclaimed, his voice ratcheting up just a notch or two. “I’ve already gone through that once, and believe me that was more than enough.”
“Fire in the hole!” the Marine sergeant...Caforio? Catalano? ...something Italian anyway, announced and Rodney jerked his head up sharply.
“Wait just a...” he started to exclaim, when the sergeant pressed the button on the remote detonator.
Rodney wasn’t sure for a moment which was worse; the feeling of dread that they might’ve just blown up Sheppard, or the nauseating lurch in the pit of his stomach from the splatter-splat of exploded organic...material landing on the floor and walls. He grimaced as he fought his stomach for the rights to breakfast.
“C’mon, Rodney,” Carson cajoled; the physician was already moving. “I’m goin’ ta need some help.”
“Oh, I am so going to make you pay for this,” McKay moaned a little as he picked his way through pieces of what looked like so much charred entrails. Only to stop dead in his tracks as he entered what was left of the isolation room. “You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered, wide-eyed as he took in the giant hole in the wall courtesy the John Sheppard Demolition Derby. “Oh, no...”
Maybe ten feet away, crumpled awkwardly in a pile of the snake-like tendrils, was Sheppard.
He looked dead.
Rodney pushed past the Marine sergeant and forgot about his P-90. He was on his knees beside the lieutenant colonel, fingers fumbling for a pulse at the pilot’s neck while Carson quickly checked Jennifer and directed the Marines and a pair of trauma medics to begin cutting her out of the shell that encased her.
“Carson!” he called out even as the Scot was hurrying over.
“Rodney?”
“He’s alive,” Rodney confirmed as Carson knelt down at the colonel’s other side. “But his pulse is really, really fast and weak.” He gulped a little as he glanced at the tentacle embedded in John’s midsection. “Of course, penetrating abdominal trauma will do that to a person,” he added nervously.
“Aye, that it will,” Carson said as he took his turn at taking John’s pulse, although unlike Rodney he was counting as the other two trauma team members joined them. “Pulse one-twenty an’ thready, respiration slow an’ shallow,” he informed the trauma medics. “Trace, get ‘im started on ten litres O2 an’ get an IV started, ringers. Anya, love, get me a pressure...let’s see what we’re up against.” As an oxygen mask was slipped over John’s nose and mouth, and the trauma nurse proceeded to take his blood pressure, Carson assessed his patient’s injured abdomen.
“Pressure’s eighty over sixty,” Anya reported tersely.
“Aye, his belly is in a bad way...distended an’ rigid,” Carson confirmed. “We’re lookin’ at some serious internal damage an’ bleedin’...we need ta get him inta surgery.” He reached up and activated his radio. “Beckett ta Infirmary. Claire, I need the primary operatin’ theatre prepped, an’ get Doctor Singh. Tell him I want him scrubbed an’ ready ta go the minute we arrive; we’re dealin’ with an acute abdomen an’ I want plenty o’ Colonel Sheppard’s type on hand.”
“Carson...” McKay murmured and when Beckett looked back down he was more than surprised to see glassy hazel eyes blinking back up at him.
“Colonel, lad, are ye with us?” he asked gently and John blinked at him again. “John, can ye hear me?”
“C’son...” John slurred and Carson smiled reassuringly at him.
“Aye, lad, ‘tis me,” he confirmed.
“Jen’fer...?” John tried to lift his head and instantly dropped back down with a deep, agonized groan. Carson’s hands shifted to the colonel’s shoulders to keep him from moving further.
“She’s bein’ looked after,” the Scot promised, wincing sympathetically as John sucked in a shallow breath. “Easy, now, Colonel; I need ye ta be still an’ no’ tryin’ ta move around. I know ye’r belly’s hurtin’; ye been a bit skewered, an’ ye’r bleedin’ inta ye stomach.” John stilled beneath his hand, and Carson nodded approvingly. “That’s good, lad; try ta relax as much as ye can, I know it’s hard with that pain, but we’re goin’ ta get ye down ta the Infirmary an’ take care o’ ye.”
“R’non?” John wanted to know next, and this time it was Rodney who answered, his voice practically humming with anxiety.
“Conan pretty much got the crap choked out of him, and he’s gotta keep quiet for a few days but he’s fine aside from a lot of bruises. You’re the one the thing decided to stab in the guts.” Rodney awkwardly reached down and patted John’s upper arm. “Just...quit squirming and let Beckett do his voodoo. It’s okay, it worked...the City’s good. They just cracked Keller out of her...well; I wouldn’t call it an oyster. But they broke her out, and...Hey, hey, stay with us, okay?” He patted John’s arm again, careful not to jar anything. Eyelids that had dropped nearly closed now fluttered drowsily. “Don’t...don’t go anywhere on us, Sheppard.”
“He’s lost a lot o’ blood, Rodney,” Carson whispered softly, before squeezing John’s other shoulder. “Lad, we’re goin’ ta cut ye free o’ this thing; we’ll be as careful no’ ta hurt ye as we can.” Carson nodded to Trace, who was prepared to sever the tendril from the main trunk of organic material so the colonel could be moved without pulling out the portion impaling his abdomen. The doctor shifted to brace one hand on either side of the area to be cut in an attempt to minimize movement, but even so, it was almost impossible to avoid the sharp tug that came partway through the cutting of the thick, viscous appendage.
The sound that emerged from John’s throat was weak and breathless, but so pained that Carson had no doubt if the colonel had the strength it would’ve been a full-throated scream. “What, are you trying to kill him?” Rodney yelped, and Trace hesitated, caught between the task at hand, the scientist’s ire, and the lieutenant colonel’s obvious pain.
“Hold him!” Carson called out. When John continued to writhe weakly, the Scot speared Rodney with a sharp look. “Rodney, I need ye ta keep him still, before he’s injured worse.”
Blue eyes looked up, startled and McKay swallowed hard before placing his hands on his friend’s shoulders, pressing Sheppard to the floor. He wasn’t sure what scared him more, that he was pinning the colonel there despite Sheppard’s weak resistance, or the dark wet stain spreading on the black teeshirt courtesy of several moments of the painful spasms.
“Don’t fight,” Rodney pleaded now, eyes wide and frantic. “It’s okay...it’s going to be okay, but you’ve gotta stop fighting.” No one was more grateful than Rodney when the fight went out of the colonel as the pain died down, but beneath his hands he could feel John’s shoulders trembling. “Good, that...that’s good, just hang on,” Rodney encouraged and turned his wide-eyed stare on Carson. “Can we wrap this up sometime in the near future? The man’s bleeding to death!” he hissed, although Rodney’s idea of “sotto voce” was somewhat more than a stage-whisper.
“Aye,” Carson agreed, one hand letting go of the tentacle long enough to tap John’s cheek and gain the colonel’s waning attention. “Lad, ye need ta hold still a moment longer so we can cut ye loose; just try ta take some deep, easy breaths for me.” He gripped the thick Wraith tendril once again. “All right, Trace, ye need ta make quicker work o’ this.”
Carson steadied the piece of hive as the trauma technician resumed his attack on it. In the end, “quicker” might not have described the process, and there were a few more terribly painful moments for John throughout, but at last the appendage was severed and the colonel was freed from the main mass of the encroaching Hive material.
“Oh...guh...” John grunted, and coughed a little, which brought on a weak moan.
“Easy Colonel,” Carson soothed as he worked to carefully bandage the part of the tendril that was still embedded in John’s stomach to prevent further motion or injury during transport. “We’ll have ye out o’ here shortly.”
“You...you did good, John,” Rodney piped up softly. “You did good. We’re gonna take care of you, okay?”
“Let’s get him on a stretcher,” Carson ordered when the wound was as stabilized for the trip as he could make it. The hive-ship material’s growth had made it impossible to bring regular gurneys with them; those were waiting on the level above the wrecked isolation room, ready for their next patients to be deposited in them. “Rodney, ye can let go o’ the lad now,” he said, and belatedly, with a startled little noise, the scientist released the pilot’s shoulders.
“’Kay, Rodney,” John murmured, finally answering the scientist’s encouragement as the stretcher was set up and settled beside the lieutenant colonel.
“On three,” Beckett pronounced. “One...two...three!” Together he and Trace lifted the wounded Sheppard and as carefully as they could, placed him on the litter. Despite their gentleness, the motion still jarred John enough to wrench a pained, choked cry from him before the hazel eyes rolled back and drifted closed.
“Carson!” Rodney fairly yelped, and the physician shifted over to press bloodied fingers to John’s neck. The rapid pulse continued to hammer beneath his fingertips, however it was growing erratic.
“He’s just unconscious, Rodney, but we’ll no’ keep him with us much longer if we dunna get him ta the Infirmary right now,,” Carson declared as he positioned himself to pick up the litter at John’s feet. “Trace, if ye please...?” There was no hesitation; the trauma medic reached for the stretcher handles at John’s head and wrapped his hands around them.
Rodney glanced over at the bed and the remains of the hard shell that had been cut away from Jennifer and he felt his stomach lurch to see her lying on her litter just as limply as Sheppard. Her face and hands were still a patchwork of tiny tendrils. However, despite the matching oxygen masks and IV’s, she didn’t appear to be in the same type of distress as Sheppard, and that at least was a relief. Ronon caught his gaze as the former Runner shrugged aside the nurse trying to attend to him and the pair of team-mates shared a tense, worried moment.
Their patients secured, the medical teams began to quickly pick their way out of the isolation room, Carson giving orders all the way, but the commands were rapidly drowned out of Rodney’s attention by the anxiety clenching his stomach and the rush to keep up with Carson’s people, especially after the unconscious duo had been transferred to the waiting gurneys. One order, however pierced the worried fog, and that was Carson commanding whoever was waiting for them in the operating arena to be ready to start John on a unit of blood the instant they hit the Infirmary.
Rodney found his knees a little shaky after that and his pace dropped off considerably as he watched the gurney bearing the dark-haired colonel disappear into the nearest transporter. It wasn’t until he felt a hand land heavily on his shoulder that he snapped out of the stunned stare to find he was practically alone with Conan and the nurse he’d brushed off earlier, Keller having been taken up in the transporter after Sheppard.
“C’mon, ‘Kay,” Ronon croaked out despite Carson’s orders, and he nodded stiffly in the direction of the transporter. “Got’ be there...when th’ wake up.”
“He’ll be waiting for you to wake up if you don’t stop talking,” the nurse interjected, perhaps a little sharply, but when Ronon glared at her, she merely put her hands on her hips. “Don’t think I won’t sedate you, Ronon Dex,” she answered back. “You’re not supposed to be talking; your vocal chords have been damaged. If you want to have the ability to talk to the colonel during his recovery, you’d better behave yourself.”
Rodney could only gape at the seemingly fearless nurse as she stood her ground, and his expression grew even more stunned when the Satedan’s expression morphed into an amused grin. He was already moving again, however, heading for the now-empty transporter. “Come on already,” he snapped. “We might as well hurry up and wait...his surgery’s probably gonna take awhile this time, too.”
Without another word, Ronon simply stepped into the transporter after Rodney and they headed to the Infirmary to await word on the good doctor Keller and their seemingly impalement-prone team leader.
++++++
Beep...beep...beep...beep...
The oddly muted sound penetrated the comfortable haze he was wrapped in, like a blanket, and John sluggishly willed it to shut up so he could go back to sleep. Beep...beep...beep...beep... It dawned on him a moment later, somewhat vaguely, that the annoying tone was keeping time along with the thump-thump feeling deep inside his stomach, and he wondered why his stomach would be making weird noises.
“Carson?” a voice buzzed nearby and John tried to ignore it; he was too tired and the thump-thump was beginning to hurt. “I think he’s coming to,” the voice spoke again.
“Colonel, lad?” Another familiar voice spoke nearby and John wished they’d all go away and let him sleep. “Colonel, ye need ta open those eyes for me.”
“Ifnmeanlemmesleep...” he mumbled, slurred really, and a vague frown popped up on pale features.
“John, ye need ta look at me, an’ let me look at ye, an’ then ye can go back ta sleep,” the familiar, accented voice said. “C’mon now, open up an’ let us see ye in there.” His eyelids felt unnaturally heavy and sleep-sodden, but John managed to drag them open to a blurry face and he blinked, trying to correct it before it churned up the nausea that seemed to lurk beneath the surface. “Easy now,” Carson Beckett was saying as his face finally came into focus.
“C’son?” John tried to make his voice work; it sounded weak and his throat hurt. But there was no mistaking the surprise in his tone for anything else.
“Aye, Colonel,” Carson reassured, already moving to pick up a small styrofoam cup that contained a few ice chips. He spooned a pair of the chips into his patient’s mouth, and John closed his eyes as wet bliss melted on his tongue and trickled back to his sore, dry throat. “How are ye feelin’, lad? Any nausea?”
“Li’l bit,” John mumbled groggily and he forced his eyes open again. He carefully turned his head to the right a little, and found the earlier speaker sitting there...Rodney, with the requisite datapad in his hands, blue eyes watching him anxiously. “Wha’appened?”
“You were stabbed by one of the developing Hive’s...tentacle-things,” Rodney wrinkled his nose a little as he mentioned it. “Poked you like a pincushion, really.”
“Rodney,” Carson chided.
“R’non ‘n Kell’r?” John tried to sound demanding but there just wasn’t enough strength behind his voice to pull it off. It was the worried look in the hazel eyes that prompted Carson to answer.
“They’re doin’ well enough,” he soothed, knowing that more than likely he’d have to answer this question again when John was more in control of his faculties. “Ronon’ is restin’ an’ gettin’ a wee bit o’ oxygen just as a precaution; his throat’s been badly bruised. Jennifer is currently in isolation, but she’s regained consciousness an’ she said ta thank ye when ye came up outta sedation.”
Carson chuckled slightly then, and John frowned vaguely in confusion. “Wha’s funny?”
“She said ta tell ye ta behave,” Carson supplied and he cocked his head a little. “Seems ye been breakin’ her in ta the business lately.” His expression softened into one of concern. “Ye just rest now, lad. I’ll get somethin’ ta fix that nausea.”
John blinked blearily, watching the physician go and then turned his drugged gaze to Rodney once more.
“How...how bad?” he wanted to know, and he frowned vaguely when McKay shifted awkwardly and swallowed hard. “M’Kay?”
“You were in surgery almost five hours,” Rodney answered quietly. “Carson said the damn thing punched a hole in your stomach and lacerated some of the lining when it...moved around. You were lucky it didn’t come out the other side and puncture anything else.” Rodney swallowed again, glancing away as he continued, “There was a lot of tissue damage but Carson said he was able to repair most of it; a couple places will heal on their own. You’re gonna be okay, and everything but it’s gonna take some time and a lot of rest.” The scientist looked back up and motioned above John’s head toward one of the bags hanging on the IV stand. “You uh, lost a lot of blood.”
John followed Rodney’s motion with a slight turn of his head and took in the blurry sight of the pint of blood that was making its way into his arm. The few minutes’ worth of conversation was costing him in terms of strength; he was more than ready to slide back to sleep and stay there for at least a week. There was one thing more he had to know, however and he forced his attention back onto the physicist sitting beside him.
“Th’ city?” he croaked out, and looked at Rodney as intently as he possibly good while still influenced by Carson’s ‘good stuff.’ “’Lantis...ok?”
“As okay as she can be considering there’s a jumper-sized hole in the isolation room,” Rodney huffed, and the normal-ness of his response was enough to tell John that everything else was under control, and he exhaled in relief. “The...baby Hive ship is being scraped off the walls and floors even as we speak, and Keller’s Ninja Turtle shell has been taken in pieces for analysis. It’s entirely possible that every Wraith Hive has a...controller like that embedded somewhere in the ship itself, but I’m just as happy not poking around inside one to find out.”
Rodney was still talking about the recovery efforts when Carson returned with a syringe of medication that he introduced into John’s IV in a practiced motion. “There ye go, lad. That’ll settle ye’r stomach directly an’ ye can get some sleep.” The last was said with a stern look at Rodney.
“Hey, he asked me a question; I was just answering him,” McKay said innocently, and he bent his head back to his datapad, fingers dancing silently over the touchscreen. He glanced up a moment later and gave John a half-smile. “Go to sleep, already,” he encouraged and waited until John drowsily nodded and closed his eyes before going back to work.
++++++
The next few days passed in a fuzzy blur of waking and sleeping, pain medication and close monitoring courtesy of Beckett and several nurses. It was all punctuated by occasional visits from his team; he woke up with McKay sitting beside him the most often.
The way to get Ronon to talk, apparently, was to forbid him to do so; each time John awakened to find the Satedan in the chair beside him, Ronon pushed the limits of Carson’s patience by trying to hold a conversation. Fortunately for both their sakes, John was still too early in his recovery to stay awake for very long, cutting their “talks” short when he dozed off.
Slightly fewer between, but no less appreciated, were visits from Teyla. New motherhood was telling on her; she was nearly as tired as John, but for a far different reason. Somehow, despite the pain and the prospect of a long recovery, John thought he had the better end of things, until he realized the nurses woke him up in the pre-dawn hours checking vitals and changing IV’s. Maybe a crying baby wasn’t that bad a deal, just a lot louder.
The second time she visited, her son was in her arms, making soft little noises that had nothing to do with crying, and tiny little fists flying in spastic motion. Seeing John was awake, Teyla had come closer with little Torren, and the spectacularly tiny fingers had wrapped themselves around John’s forefinger, and John smiled, stroking the petal-soft cheek, and drowsily observed the child had Teyla’s eyes before slipping back into the waiting dark.
After those first few days, John began to gain some ground, and Woolsey had come to see him. Carson and Jennifer too, and it had been a relief to see Keller released from isolation and looking much more like herself. It was then that he learned he was being turned over to Keller’s jurisdiction as Carson was returning to Earth within the hour. It had been delayed long enough, and yet...John was reluctant to part with the Scot yet again. The two doctors wandered away, then leaving John alone with the new commander of the Atlantis expedition.
He decided the IOA bureaucrat had just received his baptism of fire-in other words, just another day in the Pegasus Galaxy-and he’d graciously shaken the man’s hand and welcomed him to it. Pegasus, he had the feeling, had a few more lessons up its sleeve. Woolsey’d figure it out sooner or later.
He hoped.
John watched Woolsey make his exit, and decided that just as long as it didn’t take becoming another shish-kabob to make it happen, he was okay with that. Settling back against the pillows, he closed his eyes and let sleep come again.